Monday, January 5, 2009

The BI Marketplace: Four Predictions for 2009

Well, it’s that time of the year when anyone who cares to cast an eye forward has the chance to make predictions for what might happen in the year ahead. Having always been a wanna-be futurist, in my next four blog entries I will describe four important trends that I believe are sure to have a significant effect on the business intelligence sector during 2009.

To be clear, the four major trends that I’ll describe have been underway for a few years . . . in some ways too subtle for easy perception and in other ways very obvious. Either way, I’ll call them my own because, hey, this is my blog.

As a preview, here are the four significant trends that I predict will have an even more pronounced effect starting in 2009.

Consolidation of the largest BI vendors will create a ripple effect, providing more opportunity for smaller, faster, and more modern BI software providers.

Key technology shifts will create a new landscape of requirements in business intelligence, potentially accentuating the strengths of the more modern providers while hampering the aged, proprietary architectures.

The besieged CIO will come under increasing pressure to do more with less and continue to look for capable, low cost alternatives wherever they might exist.

Enterprise information systems will require a more consumer-oriented approach to appeal to the younger generation of up-and-coming workers, a concept I call “the consumerization of information”.

Hopefully that's enough to whet your appetite. I'll be expanding on each of these (sequentially) during the course of the next few weeks. I look forward to your comment and feedback even as I begin to write about each of these trends in my next four entries.